A need is felt to minimize risks during and after catastrophic events such as earthquakes, floods or weather disasters, especially in crowded places is such as those above described.
During an earthquake, a fall of material, a partial or total collapse of structures, break of glasses and windows, fall of closets, furniture or other objects, are in most cases the reason of casualties.
As well known, in the last years buildings or houses of new conception have been built, in industrialized countries, with anti-seismic criteria. However, many regions in the world are particularly exposed to earthquakes and have insufficiently protected buildings, as well as furniture and objects in the buildings are free of moving and are not enough fixed to the buildings. So, where the buildings are old or in any case not adapted to bear the thrusts of earthquakes, since it is not possible, in the short time, to replace or reinforce the buildings with anti-seismic criteria, it is however possible to modify the objects, tables, beds, chairs, shelves, etc. (since they can be reason of casualties). Such aspect becomes of particular importance in public places such as public and private schools, offices, conference rooms, railway stations etc., wherein many people can be present. Even the anti-seismic structures, on the other hand, are capable of resisting in case of earthquake phenomena only up to a certain intensity, normally magnitude 7, whereas for extremely strong earthquakes they can also suffer serious damages.
Anti-seismic protection structures are known in the form of tables, beds and of other kind, which appear as furnishing in a building, in an office, in a school etc.
The most common types show a school or office desk of different size as described for example in JP2003310776A, CN201226987Y or in CN201210972Y, comprising an upper plane held with uprights of steel or wood or by a reticular open structure. The same structure that bears the desk defines a space within which at least one people can shelter in case of earthquake. Such structure provides, furthermore, in the shelter space, a kit of tools that can comprise for example a torch, a fire extinguisher or other tools, as described in CN201227483Y or in CN201243766Y.
As above said, however, the space located under the upper table desk is protected laterally only by uprights or by a reticular structure, and fragments of walls, objects or other debris can reach the user under the table shelter space.
This drawback is faced by other anti-seismic structures, as disclosed in JP11099217A, which have a box-like shape. In this case, an inner support frame is present that bears a plurality of boards arranged to cover it. Through an access door hinged to the structure, a user can access inside.
Such structure, however, has some drawbacks. Firstly, the access door, removable or hinged to the box-like structure at the aperture, is in the former case difficult to open/close quickly in case of need, whereas in the latter case it is always necessary to provide at least one hinged edge that reduces remarkably the size of the entrance and can block the user when entering quickly in the box-like structure.
Furthermore, such box-like structures do not ensure a fluid tight shelter space. Such causes gas, fluids or dust, formed by the collapse of walls or floors, to leak into the shelter space causing high risk on the safety of the user.
On the other hand, protection cells capable of protecting people in case of tsunami, landslide or flood disasters do not exist.